Love Letters

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Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and it just puts me in that girly sort of mood…

I brought out a set of my antique French letters and added a few of my favorite

18th century French fashion plate photos to them and printed them out…

Would make great wrapping paper for some sweetheart. More on that

trend setting hairstyle via Surroundings here

The queen of decorating with gorgeous antique French script

is Carolyn Quartermaine. Photo above from her book Revealed.

Her website shows the latest she’s up to but I’m still entranced

by where she’s been. An earlier post I did of her  Pink and Gold

I framed nine of my favorite antique letters and set them

above a console in the master bedroom. Though stock

frames, I switched out the glass with archival glass.

Below is a set of ho-hum books I painted a few shades of blue

From Framing a Wall here (yes that’s a Quartermaine

script pillow in Stephen Shubel’s Paris apartment)

Love the packaging on these bars of soap…

Script, 18th century fashion plates, flowers…

Tokyo milk

Old garden roses from last fall with

a simple Japanese anemone…

Doesn’t everyone want to be pampered on Valentines day?

Love the elegant posture, brilliant yellow, the careful application

of powder to her high and heavily pomaded hair…

more 18th Century Hairdressing here

Silky yellow, lace, bow…

From Last Honeyed Drips of Summer here

One of my first posts…from peony border

to Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette ‘s delicious shoes

Treasure Hues here

Hmmm…what do you get the menfolk for Valentine’s day?

Cravat, shoe buckles, walking stick?

gilded French settee with script fabric

More script  (what can I say… I love letters)

and wonderful video of Carolyn Quartermaine  here

Shoe photo from Marie Antoinette Style by Adrien Goetz

Most of the Fashion plates come from the “Galerie des Modes”   1778-1787

From my dogeared edition of Eighteenth century French Fashion Plates

in full color edited by Stella Blum

Special Note

Mélanie from the wonderful French blog Le Petit Cabinet de Curiosités will have

the Grand Opening of her boutique tomorrow. She has around 200 antique French letters.

Some are 19th century and are letters to a “Comte”. Others are contracts from the

beginning of the 19th century with crowns on them, which she will put up first.

She has around 10 that are from the 17th century.

Chambre de Lit

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Sublime. Simple bed crowned by incredible beauty overhead.

Voluminous drapery at headboard and window…

Charming domed “ceil de lit” (sky of the bed) elevates bed’s stature…

Crystal drops glittering in the cool blue-green light above…

Most of the drama in the room design takes place overhead.

The un-patterned wash of neutrals

adds to the serenity…

La Madone

Owners Nathalie and husband Jean- Bernard Masset

Maisons Cote Sud

Dec-Jan ’10

Pam from Red Ticking found and sold a fabulous

ceil de lit last year that I would have considered

worthy of raising the master bedroom ceiling for.

Besides the carved wood roses (drool)

love the color, and the scraps of burlap underlay…

Catches breath….

I opined about it in an earlier post here

I think I first saw this on Country French Antiques a few years ago…

How is it any less beautiful today…?

Veranda ’02

I love the mix of incredible French antique pieces

toned down with humble cloth and color…

My husband is blissfully unaware that if another

carved rose ceil de lit as gorgeous as the one above

pops up in my line of vision I will have limited ability to

defend our bank account…and numerous very good

arguments for the benefits of healthy air circulation

in lofty bedrooms.

Update:

Wow, my lovely reader from South Africa, Colette, in the comments below, alerted me

to the website of the couple, Nathalie and husband Jean- Bernard Masset of La Madone,

who rent out this lovely apartment in Lourmarin. Though photo of bed below is smaller,

it’s much brighter and really shows off the detail of the room. Click here to see more of

this apartment. Main site with other apartments  here.

Colette, who stayed in the apartment last summer, says “the ceiling-paintings and

frescoes are all original and dates back to 18th century. truly amazing to see.”

“I recall Nathalie saying that the bed-canopy was found in the building when they

bought it…that is if I understood her English/French correct.” The drapes hanging

from the canopy are actually old linen sheets that Nathalie dyes herself. Colette

found some beautiful sheets like those and a grey color from Nathalie’s  shop.

Three photos above by reader Colette Nel

Thank you so much Colette!

Visit Natalie’s  wonderful blog here

Setting up Shop at the Flea Market

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What a gorgeous day at the flea market….

My just turned 18 year old boy (here on my bulletin board)

came along. Made him a thermos of cocoa and off we hurtled into the

brisk and clear Sunday morning before 7 am. Just look at that sunrise.

So many vendors go out of their way to catch your eye…

Loved this vendor’s full coat rack of vintage frames…

Everyone loves Big Daddy’s Antiques …and owner Shane Brown is such a

nice guy. He really is always my favorite stop at the Flea. I have friends who’ve

visited and have been blown away by his enormous warehouse in Los Angeles…

If you get on his email list they send out reminders, and offer to put anything

you see on their website here on the truck to bring up north for the monthly

Alameda flea market. His displays are always incredible.

The trumeau is reproduction, huge, available

in several colors and sizes here

Shane had many black and gold framed prints

Nice strong visual/traditional statement able to hold

its own against the heavy industrial…

Wire multi-compartment baskets filled with

jingling glass test tubes, rough bowls filled with

succulents, huge twisted wood balls…

At 7:30 his guys are still pulling things off his truck

setting up his “rooms”

Lots of industrial…with personal touches here on the drawers…

“Collier”, “Manchon”, “Raccord” … Collars, sleeves, connection….

Shane had his guys fill this metal cauldron with

sand and then set and light a quantity of votives

that flickered in the morning breeze…

Faux bois style mushroom trees on the industrial

table behind, wrapped at the base in burlap…

Magic in the midst of 800 vendors set up on

acres of asphalt, with the huge cranes used to

unload cargo off the bay stalwart in the distance…

Chopping block table with industrial pot rack…

Under “custom tables” here

Shane was almost apologetic when he gave me a price on one

of these gorgeous antique vellum books ($750)

C’est la vie. They’ll be well worth it to someone.

Love the row of milk pails at top

Gorgeous wheat colored cabinet

hit by the early morning sun…

I always come to the flea market with an open mind

but I needed a few of these long antique bread baskets…

and grabbed Big Daddy’s last two.

Always leave Big Daddy’s wishing I could buy more

Across the way …

a bit of quiet reflection on a busy day…

Antiques by the Bay

Romancing the Stone

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I found this austere lion’s head in a stone yard

more than a decade ago, had the trough made from

cinder block, cement, and stucco a few years later…

Every year it yields further to winter’s mossy embrace

Might make a buttermilk and moss cocktail to help

that right corner along…

The gold fish…

Are great companions…

We added many stone retaining walls

to wrestle the most use out of our yard…

Necessity, the mother of invention,

adding character in the landscape…

Cast stone capital…

has followed me around for over 20 years…

The overturned garden cloche winters inside

to force narcissus over pebbles

First offerings from the garden…

muscari, violets, narcissus

Garden steps growing their own winter garden…

The Romance of Metal

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France
Circa 1750
the paper clad bust top of later date, circa 1940
beautiful feminine wood dress forms
on iron frame terminating to wood wheels at base

Coup d’Etat

There’s a certain romance to metal….

Metal with patina, age, irregularities, character…

I sometimes am perplexed by what on the surface appears

to be inconsistencies in my “finds”…the hard versus the soft…

But I think there is an overwhelming aggregate of naturalism

in everything I love: the romance of imperfection, randomness,

the vagaries of shape and hue…

Is the appeal of this exploding peony really

that different from the molting and blooming

finish on this vintage metal cabinet?

Belgium
Circa 1910 – 1920

Coup d’etat

“As the sword of the best metal is most flexible, so the truly generous

are most pliant and courteous in their behavior to their inferiors”

Thomas Fuller 1608-1661

Embossed metal serving platter with scrolled arms

against nubby grain cloth…

Classic French bistro…

c. 19th century

the romance of story behind an object…

Ebay here

The ruffled sweep of petals…

their incandescent ruffled edges

Even my obsession with ruffles…here in full metal palette…

seems to echo wanton blooms with ruffled edges.

Love this large wire basket…wanted to go back for

another but dear husband thought I was crazy. I

occasionally listen to his design advice. C’est dommage.

This  metal basket has occasionally been mossed to

accept plants, or left as is for pretty files in my office…

Yes…that’s a sketch of a flamboyant 3 on the back…

I seem to always prefer unfinished…whispery…

the trailing end of a sentence…

On Wisteria’s zinc ball table…

A flea market bird cage shell…

Bought it for the shape so the missing wire wasn’t a problem..

Clearly met with the good cat seal of approval…

Earlier blooms were herbaceous peonies from my garden…spring ’09

Above is a tree peony bloom…less demanding of a winter chill

and thus favored for a warmer climate. The blooms reach 12 inches

across…chaotic, random, ephemeral, transient, hue-tastic